Datasheet

Working with Digital Images

There may also be a download button in the e-mail program, which may not give you an opportu-

nity to choose a location on your computer. If you can’t choose a location, you will need to know

where your computer auto-saves downloaded files or make a note of the image name and search

your computer for it after it is downloaded.

JPEG is usually a fail-safe format for easy downloading through e-mail, but if a JPEG doesn’t meet

your needs, good formats for retrieval from e-mail are those that can be compressed and saved

with ZipIt or Stuffit software. Common file extensions are ZIP and SIT files. ZipIt and Stuffit are

inexpensive and can create self-extracting files at a reduced size. Once downloaded, either the files

automatically decompress when they are saved to your computer, or you can double-click the

downloaded files to decompress them. A decompressed version of the file will be saved in the same

directory as the compressed version.

Many e-mail servers are set to limit the file size that can be received through e-mail. Often, the

limit is 1MB. If the attached files are too large, the e-mail may not reach the recipient. E-mail pro-

viders should be able to tell you the file attachment size limitations.

Video

Common types of digital camcorders record to MiniDV tapes, MiniDVDs, or camcorder hard

drives. Most use FireWire cables to connect to your computer so you can copy video files to your

computer. See Figure 1.20 for FireWire connector types.

If you are shopping for a camcorder and want to edit your video in the video-editing software that

comes with your operating system or in Photoshop, be sure to research which camcorder models

can be used to transfer video files to your computer.

Transferring video files to your computer is generally easiest from camcorders that use MiniDV

tapes. Video-editing software that comes with Windows (Windows Movie Maker) and the Mac OS

(iMovie) can import MiniDV video and, if necessary, save it to a format that Photoshop can import.

Still frames from videos can also be captured and saved to your computer from Windows Movie

Maker and iMovie and opened in Photoshop. Figure 1.23 shows still frames in iMovie on a Mac.

Photoshop can open these Quicktime video file formats: MPEG-1 and -4, MOV, AVI, FLV (if Flash

8 is installed), and MPEG-2 (if an MPEG-2 encoder is installed).

Photoshop can open these image sequence formats: BMP, DICOM, JPEG, OpenEXR, PNG, PSD,

Targa, TIFF, Cineon, and JPEG 2000 if the plug-ins are installed.